By this however, according to a spiritual meaning, we may understand that the body of the Lord should not be wrapped in gold or gems, or silk, but in a clean linen cloth. Hence it became a custom in the Church that the sacrifice of the altar should not be celebrated in silk, or in a dyed cloth, but in linen produced from the earth, just as the body of the Lord was wrapped in clean linen; as, we read in the Pontifical acts, it was ordered by the blessed Sylvester [ed. note: St. Sylvester was Pope from 314 to 335. On his decree respecting the Corporal used in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, see Bona de Rebns Lit., i.e. 25. 11].
Though it has also another meaning, that he who receives Jesus in a pure mind wraps Him in a clean linen. There follows: “And laid Him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.”
It is said that the sepulchre of the Lord is a round cell, hewn out of the rock which was around it, so high, that a man standing upright could scarcely touch the roof with his outstretched hand; and it has an entrance to the east, to which the great stone was rolled, and placed upon it. In the northern part of it is the tomb itself, that is, the place where our Lord’s body lay, made of the same rock, seven feet in length, raised three palms higher than the floor. It is not open from above, but on the south side, the whole of which is open, and through which the body was brought in. The colour of the sepulchre and of the recess is said to be a mixed white and red.
Reproduced in full. Translation: Oxford 1841 (Newman), public domain (Public domain).